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Album Review:
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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Album Review: El Doom And The Born Electric – Self-Titled

Ole Petter Andreassen is El Doom, Norwegian artist, producer and
founding member of death n’ rollers The Cumshots and stoner poptarts
Thulsa Doom, two wildly different-sounding bands. I must admit I was
intrigued then, when his Born Electric project plopped onto my desk with
the information that he had collected around him a sort of a “Who`s Who
of the Norwegian progressive/jazz scene. We have Norwegian
Grammy-awarded bass-player Nicolai Eilertsen (Elephant 9), drummer
Haavard Takle Ohr (El Cuero), Hammond wiz Ståle Storløkken (Elephant 9)
and guitarists Brynjar Takle Ohr (El Cuero) and Hedvig Mollestad (Hedvig
Mollestad Trio). Unfamiliar names but, as early listens prove beyond a
doubt, all incredibly adept at their art.

Across the 53 minutes of their debut’s running time, there are some
straight-forward tunes, like the indignant howls that haunt ‘With Full
Force’ and the threaded hooks and melting heart of ‘The Lights’.
However, the lengthier pieces reveal the band’s true colours and
penchant for throwing everything into the pot and liberally stirring.
Take ‘Fire Don’t Know’. It bursts forth with a bumpy camel ride of a
guitar riff that unbalances you with its thunderous grunt, threatening
to throw you off before El Doom can pour out his tremulous David Bowie
meets Neil Arthur (Blancmange) vocal. Obscure 70s/80s references aside,
the nine-minute blazer, wrapped around a malleable, prog rock wall of
sound, crescendos and abates its way through careering psych and driving
stickwork, vibrating wodges of Hammond and reverb-heavy guitar solo.

Thought that was good? Get a load if ‘It’s Electric’. It’s the
strait-jacketed madman within; the forceful bass bullying it’s way to
stand side-by-side with El Doom. It’s the sound of The Melvins
channelling Rush through Mastodon’s insane set-up. The blue hints, oddly
offer up the kind of tonal flourishes that Mark Morton brings to Lamb
Of God to mind, and the dying licks of Spanish guitar slap on nothing
but a huge grin to your gurning face.

‘The Hook’, naturally, stands out a mile. The sheer panic within
Doom’s quavering vocal almost loses the plot; chaos defined. Matching it
there is a blitzkrieg of guitars that dive down into cloud before
reappearing to continue the dogfight. Volume knobs are toyed with and
the jarring chords begin to collapse in on themselves as the production
calls it a day and fades them out well before their time is up. Still,
there are some sublime riffs lurking within all this. The best of which
is the sinuous lick that marks out ‘Subtle As A Shit House’ and will see
you strapping on the air guitar and screwing your eyes up in reverie.
Sure the track falls into a pit of classic rock posturing but you’ll buy
into it to get back to that sublime riff once more. Oh, and you want a
spot of Soundgarden-esque grunge? Look no further than the 11-minute
wanderlust of ‘Red Flag’.

All tracks covered then, we have learned that to appreciate El Doom
And The Born Electric’s debut, an open mind is an absolute must. For
those fans of all things rock who are willing to dig into something a
little more jazzy and a lot more progressive than they are used to, will
be handsomely rewarded.